#ariane tabatabai

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

The American appeasement of Iran has left many people mystified. They should have been paying more attention.

Twelve days before the October 7 pogrom, Jay Solomon reported on the Semafor site that Ariane Tabatabai, chief of staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defence for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, was part of an “Iran Experts Initiative” created by senior Iranian foreign ministry officials to bolster Tehran’s position on global security issues, particularly its nuclear programme. 

In other words, Tabatabai was an agent of influence for Iran, at the heart of the US government and with the highest level of security clearance.

Semafor and the Iranian opposition group Iran International had obtained a large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails. These revealed that in 2021 Robert Malley, who was the point man on Iran under both the Obama and Biden administrations until he was removed in June 2023 following a still unexplained “mishandling of classified materials,” had infiltrated Tabatabai into the US State Department to assist him in his negotiations with Iran. 

The day Solomon’s article appeared, 31 US Senators wrote to the Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, to express their concern. They wrote: “We find it unconscionable that a senior department official would continue to hold a sensitive position despite her alleged participation in an Iranian government information operation”.  

They noted that in March 2021, shortly after Tabatabai was appointed senior adviser to the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Iranian dissidents had reported her long history of echoing the Iranian regime’s talking points.

Indeed, that month Adam Kredo reported in the Washington Free Beacon on these dissidents’ shock at Tabatabai’s appointment. They claimed she had parroted the regime’s position in multiple public appearances, and that her father was part of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s inner circle.

In April 2021, several House members requested a review of Tabatabai’s security clearance. In response, the Biden administration dismissed these claims as “smears and slander”.

Even more astonishingly, Tabatabai runs the office overseeing hostage negotiations. Three weeks after the October 7 pogrom, a reporter asked the White House spokesman, John Kirby, whether it was appropriate for Tabatabai to be in such a position given the claims made against her.  Kirby stalled. Tabatabai is still there. 

Online, several commentators (including myself) wrote about this. The mainstream media studiously ignored it.

In the past few days, they’ve ignored another vital revelation. 

[darkmaga-retard]

Congressional Republicans are investigating Vice President Kamala Harris' national security adviser, Phil Gordon, over his alleged ties to an Iran-backed influence network.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) are heading the probe, questioning Gordon's connections to Ariane Tabatabai, a senior Department of Defense official with top-secret security clearance who was recently outed in a report by Semafor accusing him of being a member of an Iranian-run influence network that reports back to Tehran's foreign ministry and helps push its policies among lawmakers in Washington. (Related: Deep state plotting SECOND assassination attempt on Trump, via IRAN.)

Tabatabai's alleged links to the organization prompted a congressional probe and calls among Republicans for her security clearance to be yanked.

Chris Maier, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, disclosed the investigation during testimony before Congress. Tabatabai serves as Maier's chief of staff.

Part of the investigation is concerned with how much Iranian interests have influenced the administration of President Joe Biden and Harris, and the effect this may have had on the national security of the United States. As the 2024 election approaches, Gordon's ties to pro-Tehran advocacy groups are likely to remain a focal point of scrutiny.

"Before joining your office, Gordon co-authored at least three opinion pieces with Tabatabai blatantly promoting the Iranian regime's perspective and interests. In a March 2020 piece, Gordon and Tabatabai claimed continued sanctions on Iran would create 'catastrophe' in the Middle East," wrote Cotton and Stefanik in a letter to Harris. "In another, they wrote sanctions could lead to new Iranian efforts to 'lash out with attacks on its neighbors, and on Americans and American interests in the Middle East.' Each prediction was as wrong, as it was biased in favor of Tehran."

[icubud]

Arian Tabatabai, Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations was exposed as an Iranian agent two months ago. Not only was she not fired, her security clearance was not compromised. And recently, she completed a naval intelligence officer course and now she also receives information about the precise navigation of US submarines.

“The Navy has been actively training her to be an intelligence officer and giving her access to, not just what she has in her civilian job, but access to all the need-to-know information that a reserve unit has,” says the officer.

“This naval reserve [role] gives her more clearance and access. Everyone she has contact with in the Navy intelligence realm is now potentially outed.”

A report handed to Congress and the White House this month claims Tabatabai and other members of the Tehran-backed influence network, the Iran Experts Initiative, have infiltrated the US government to spread disinformation about the Iranian regime’s intentions and to undermine the leading anti-Iranian dissident group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq(MEK).

[ucanbeasurvivor]

Resource Kash Patel so far I trust this resource Kash Patel highlights the unbelievable connections between three senior Biden intelligence officials—Robert Malley, Ariane Tabatabai, and Maher Bitar—and their associations with Hamas and Iran.

On June 29, 2023, Robert Malley was placed on unpaid leave from his role as Joe Biden's special envoy to Iran, and his security clearance was suspended due to an ongoing investigation into the potential mishandling of classified materials. https://t.me/mel_gibsonchannel/2914

[dertaglichedan]

The Biden administration’s now-suspended Iran envoy Robert Malley helped to fund, support, and direct an Iranian intelligence operation designed to influence the United States and allied governments, according to a trove of purloined Iranian government emails.

The emails, which were reported on by veteran Wall Street Journal correspondent Jay Solomon, writing in Semafor, and by Iran International, the London-based émigré opposition outlet which is the most widely read independent news source inside Iran, were published last week after being extensively verified over a period of several months by the two outlets.

They showed that Malley had helped to infiltrate an Iranian agent of influence named Ariane Tabatabai into some of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. government—first at the State Department and now the Pentagon, where she has been serving as chief of staff for the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, Christopher Maier.

[warsofasoiaf]

Please tell me we didn't just start a war with Iran. I'm having a nervous breakdown...

I'm no expert on Iran, but I don't think it will be an overt war. However, Iran almost certainly will not simply tuck tail, hardline authoritarians won't do that since it projects weakness and Solemani was a very popular figure. An escalation in a covert war is possible. Acceleration of the nuclear program may also be in the works. Perhaps even deniable asset action or prompting for stochastic terror. Iran will almost certainly respond in some case, but the response is likely to be asymmetric. They'll probably milk it first to shore up support for the regime which had been suffering since the deadly protests.

My goto for analysis on Iran is RAND's Ariane Tabatabai.

Thanks for the question, White.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[newbooks-tulibrary]

Triple axis : Iran's relations with Russia and China

The most significant challenge to the post-Cold War international order is the growing power of ambitious states opposed to the West. Iran, Russia and China each view the global structure through the prism of historical experience. Rejecting the universality of Western liberal values, these states and their governments each consider the relative decline of Western economic hegemony as an opportunity. Yet cooperation between them remains fragmentary. The end of Western sanctions and the Iranian nuclear deal; the Syrian conflict; new institutions in Central and East Asia: in all these areas and beyond, the potential for unity or divergence is striking. In this new and comprehensive study, Ariane Tabatabai and Dina Esfandiary address the substance of this `triple axis' in the realms of energy, trade, and military security. In particular they scrutinise Iran-Russia and the often overlooked field of Iran-China relations. Their argument - that interactions between the three will shape the world stage for decades to come - will be of interest to anyone looking to understand the contemporary international security puzzle.

[ravishankarsivasubramaniam]

NPR News: Aggressive Rhetoric Ramps Up Between U.S. And Iran

Aggressive Rhetoric Ramps Up Between U.S. And Iran NPR's Rachel Martin discusses rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran with NPR's Greg Myre and Ariane Tabatabai, who focuses on the Middle East at the RAND Corporation. Read more on NPR

[andrewtheprophet]

The Merchant is totally wrong about Iran

The Merchant is totally wrong about Iran

Trump thinks ‘maximum pressure’ will change Iran. History says he’s wrong. – The Washington Post

Biden wants to return to the 2015 nuclear deal. His approach is far more likely to work.

A screen showing President Trump and Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tokyo, on Jan. 8. (Koji Sasahara/AP)

By Philip H. Gordon and Ariane M. Tabatabai

October 14, 2020 at 7:00 AM EDT

If…

[outsidetheknow]

Iran’s Coming Nuclear Expansion by BY PHILIP GORDON AND ARIANE TABATABAI

Iran’s Coming Nuclear Expansion by BY PHILIP GORDON AND ARIANE TABATABAI

By BY PHILIP GORDON AND ARIANE TABATABAI

The Trump administration could find itself facing a choice between allowing Iran to get the bomb — or to bomb Iran.

Published: January 6, 2020 at 11:00PM

from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2QrlIOK via IFTTT

[javierpenadea]

"Iran’s Coming Nuclear Expansion" by BY PHILIP GORDON AND ARIANE TABATABAI via NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2QrlIOK

[izayoi1242]

Iran’s Coming Nuclear Expansion

By BY PHILIP GORDON AND ARIANE TABATABAI The Trump administration could find itself facing a choice between allowing Iran to get the bomb — or to bomb Iran. Published: January 6, 2020 at 07:00PM from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2QrlIOK via IFTTT

[tastydregs]

How Iran's Hackers Might Strike Back After Soleimani's Assassination

For years, US tensions with Iran have held to a kind brinksmanship. But the drone assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, widely understood to be the second most powerful figure in Iran, has dangerously escalated tensions. The world now awaits Iran's response, which seems likely to make new use of a tool that the country has already been deploying for years: its brigades of military hackers.

In the wake of Thursday's strike, military and cybersecurity analysts caution Iran's response could include, among other possibilities, a wave of disruptive cyberattacks. The country has spent years building the capability to execute not only the mass-destruction of computers but potentially more advanced—albeit far less likely—attacks on Western critical infrastructure like power grids and water systems.

"Cyber is certainly an option and it’s a viable and likely one for Iran," says Ariane Tabatabai, a political scientist at the RAND think tank who focuses on Iran. Tabatabai points to the asymmetric nature of a conflict between Iran and the US: Iran's military resources are depleted, she argues, and it has no nuclear weapons or powerful state allies. That means it will most likely resort to the weapons that weak actors typically use to fight strong ones, like non-state terrorists and militias—and hacking. "If it’s going to be able to match the US, and compete with and deter it, it has to do it in a realm that’s more equal, and that's cyber."

"They have the capability to cause serious damage."

Peter Singer, New America Foundation

Iran has ramped up its cyberwar capabilities ever since a joint US-Israeli intelligence operation deployed the malware known as Stuxnet in the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in 2008, destroying centrifuges and crippling the country's nuclear efforts. Iran has since put serious resources into advancing its own hacking, though it deploys them more for espionage and mass disruption than Stuxnet-like surgical strikes.

"After Stuxnet, they built up multiple units across government and proxies, including the Quds that Soleimani led," says Peter Singer, a cybersecurity-focused strategist at the New America Foundation. Singer argues that while Iran's hackers had previously been restrained by the need for stealth or deniability, they may now instead seek to send a very public message. "Those forces aren't equal to those of the US, certainly, but they have the capability to cause serious damage, especially if they're not worried about attribution, which they may indeed now want."

The most likely form of cyberattack to expect from Iran will be the one it has launched repeatedly against its neighbors in recent years: so-called wiper malware designed to destroy as many computers as possible inside target networks. Iran has used wipers like Shamoon and Stone Drill to inflict waves of disruption across neighboring countries in the Middle East, starting with an attack in 2012 that destroyed 30,000 Saudi Aramco computers. In 2014, Iranian hackers hit the Las Vegas Sands corporation with a wiper after owner Sheldon Adelson suggested a nuclear strike against the country. More recently, Iran's hackers have hit private sector targets in neighboring Gulf states like the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait, as well as a Saipem, an Italian oil firm for whom Saudi Aramco is a major customer.

"From what we know to date of their capabilities, they're still really focused on IT-targeted wipers." says Joe Slowik, an analyst at industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos who formerly led the Computer Security and Incident Response Team at the US Department of Energy.

Aside from the Sands incident, Iran has largely restrained itself from launching those wiper attacks on the US itself. But the Soleimani assassination may change that calculus. "Iran has been reluctant to go after Americans and US allied forces such as Australia or NATO," says RAND's Tabatabai. "Given the scale of last night's attack, I wouldn't be surprised if that's changed."